How to log an error's message without stack trace in JavaScript?

Question

I want to log that an error occurred without exiting from the program, so i enclose the code that might throw an error in a try-catch block like such

try
{
    let query = parseStatement(input); // might throw an error
    console.log(query);
}
catch (err)
{
    console.error(err); // logs the entire error with stack trace
}
finally
{
    this.prompt();
}

The output I would like to obtain is the error's message without the whole stack trace. Something along the lines of:

Error: Missing semicolon at the end of statement: <statement>

and not

Error: Missing semicolon at the end of statement: <statement>
    at error (/home/nic/dev/nodedb/src/errors.js:5:11)
    at Function.tokenize (/home/nic/dev/nodedb/src/tokens.js:53:13)
    at parseStatement (/home/nic/dev/nodedb/src/sql.js:35:24)
    at Shell.onData (/home/nic/dev/nodedb/src/shell.js:49:25)
    at ReadStream.emit (node:events:394:28)
    at addChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:312:12)
    at readableAddChunk (node:internal/streams/readable:287:9)
    at ReadStream.Readable.push (node:internal/streams/readable:226:10)
    at TTY.onStreamRead (node:internal/stream_base_commons:190:23)

I’m voting to close this question because it doesn't offer a real solution to the problem of logging without a stack trace; the accepted answer is wrong, and was written by the author himself. — Ricardo Tomasi
– Ricardo Tomasi, Commented Dec 14, 2022 at 8:44
I don't know, but to me this seems a bug in Firefox ? -- I sometimes see the stack trace expanded, and can not collapse it. Other times with the same code I see the stack trace collapsed, and can expand it (e.g. after a browser re-start) -- I think console.error should not display the stack trace, but may provide it "collapsed" (i.e. you would see the stack trace when you "expand" it). — kca
– kca, Commented Nov 29, 2023 at 13:57

Nicholas Obert · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-21 15:01:55Z

4

From the documentation:

The Error object has a .message property, so instead of printing the whole error, just

console.error(error.message);

answered Jun 21, 2021 at 15:01

Nicholas Obert

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3 Comments

Nicholas Obert Over a year ago

@LawrenceCherone There was no such question/answer on SO, so i thought someone else might stumble upon the need to log an error without the whole stack trace. I think this question/answer might save someone else the time to read through the documentation

Mir-Ismaili Over a year ago

Even a plain text will have stack-trace. Not for itself. But for where you write the console.error().

er.bhargav.vyas Over a year ago

For me in nodejs this does not work. Even with just error.message it logs the call stack.

VISHAL DAGA · Accepted Answer · 2024-03-28 16:17:03Z

2

With Node, you can simply use

process.exit()

If you want to log a message - use console.log/error before exiting the process.

If you just want to remove stacktrace then you may do error.stack = "" before throwing the error like:-

const error = new Error("Your message");
error.stack = ""
throw error

edited Mar 28, 2024 at 16:17

answered Mar 28, 2024 at 16:11

VISHAL DAGA

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Comments

Orchide Irakoze SR · Accepted Answer · 2025-05-21 07:30:17Z

0

console.error(error.message)

Will log but you might not want runtime to continue

which is why process.exit(1) is important to terminate the current runtime

answered May 21 at 7:30

Orchide Irakoze SR

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